A Promise Of Forever
by Itsthepoliceopenup
Summary: Ophelia Potter has been the master of death for eons, she had seen the rise of civilizations and the fall of empires, interfering when time rippled. She watched and waited for that moment when she could join all of those loved in the afterlife, those who would make life worth living. Ophelia Potter wished to die. Until him. Until James Buchanan Barnes. Female Harry Potter
1. Chapter 1: The assignment

Ophelia Potter became the master of death when she collected all the Hallows. She could no longer age and she was doomed to forever be Deaths minion, which was the very opposite of the title 'Master of Death' implied. Death used three brothers as a ploy, to find a helper, a minion to relive her workload, and when she finally found Ophelia, someone worthy and capable of handling the duties of the master of death, she bestowed upon her the unwanted gift of eternal life.

Being the Master of Death was a tedious job, Ophelia handed the ripples in time caused by the actions or inactions of individuals, this meant she was supposed to travel through time correcting accidents that weren't meant to happen and guide those destined to do great things. Choices. That's what made Ophelia's life so hard. Life was in a constant state of flux and every problem Ophelia fixed led to more ripples in time, which led to more and more and more. By the time Ophelia had almost caught up with deaths neglect of the time ripples she had lived for eons.

For one such assignment Ophelia stood on the streets of Brooklyn, 1940, her appearance similar to that of her original life aiming to look like a woman in her early twenties, she had been instructed to save a teenager from getting hit by a car. Ophelia's magic began to tingle and her eyesight narrowed in on the corner of a street she could see a mother with her child in a pram and two boys, one a dark-haired, well-built boy and the other a scrawny, sickly looking boy. Time rippled around the scrawny boy and Ophelia saw flashes of him in a blue red and white suit white a matching shield, this boy was important.

Ophelia heard the screeching of tires and saw a car speed uncontrollably towards the corner the boys were standing on, she began to move propelling herself to stand between the boys and the car pushing them out of the way, she could've gotten away from the car if she hadn't remembered the mother and her baby the seconds she took to see if they were out of the way left her with no time to get out of the way of the car herself. The car hit her with a sick crunch she could feel her ribs crack and her leg felt like it was on fire stuck under the wheel of the car. Ophelia felt woozy and she couldn't see straight and her entire body felt like it was shutting down. It only took seconds for her world to fade into darkness.

Ophelia knew where she was the moment she woke up she was again in limbo, the place between life and death.

"Ophelia, what have you done now?" sighed a voice behind her. "Well at least I can use this time to talk to you." The voice muttered.

"Death, what do you need?" Ophelia questioned she hadn't seen death in a long time, they were always busy. But that was deaths own fault.

"I need you to stay with these boys for a while I'm getting strange readings off them. I was looking up their charts and it says they don't die until the late 21st century which seems impossible unless they are related to the Norse, but their stats now seem completely human. So I'm going to revive you and you need to stay close to these boys as humanly possible." Death said quickly and genuinely interested in the predicament these boys presented and Ophelia was too.

"I'll do it. As long as I get something in reward." She challenged Death,

"Fine, you can have a vacation from you duties if you do this correctly and find out what causes them to live for so long. But for you to complete this to the standard I hold this assignment at we are going to have no contact unless you die which I hope you don't, because it has taken enough paperwork to make you human. Don't fuck this up Ophelia." He said before muttering "let's hope you're not too badly injured." Then with a snap of his fingers all the pain Ophelia had felt when she was hit came rushing back.

Ophelia moaned in pain, she was in agony her entire body hurt, it hurt to breath and her head felt fuzzy she her leg was in excruciating pain and she felt very woozy. She could vaguely see that she was being wheeled somewhere fast on a stretcher, but the words the doctors were speaking were sounded like gibberish. She felt a prick in her arm and knew it was the anaesthetic and all she could think of was that this better not cause any lasting damage before her mind darkened again.

When Ophelia woke again she was in a brightly lit room that smelt sterile and vaguely of disinfectant. She began to try to move but he pain stopped her it wasn't as bad as yesterday probably due to the medical attention. Oh how Ophelia loathed Hospitals and Infirmaries, she made a face at her displeasure just as a nurse came in. The nurse looked like a bright and cheerful lady, her hair was done up perfectly and her clothes were pristine, then she turned and Ophelia saw her name on the name tag, Nurse Ellen Adams.

Ophelia shifted in discomfort barely able to move due to the constricting bandages and plaster, the sound of the rustling bedsheets drew the nurse's attention, her eyes widened comically.

You're awake!" the nurse exclaimed surprized, she called out to a passing doctor "Doctor Roberts the Jane Doe has woken up." She then turned back to Ophelia, "How are you feeling, any pain?" she questioned. Before Ophelia could speak the doctor rushed in.

"Hello, Miss..."

"Black, Ophelia Black" she said deciding to change her last name to just tie up any loose ends.

"Miss Black, I am Doctor Roberts, how do you feel?" Dr Roberts questioned.

"Like I got hit by a car" Ophelia deadpanned.

"Well that you were, a very noble thing you did saving Mr Rogers and Mr Barnes like that. But firstly we need to address your injuries you have two fractured ribs, a severe concussion, you lost a lot of blood and had bled internally for quite a while before we were able to notice and stop it. Your leg was completely crushed under the weight of the car and the bone fragments caused irreversible harm to your left legs tendons and muscles and there was a high chance of infection and so we made the decision to amputate." Ophelia's eyes traveled to her legs they were covered by a blanket but from the outline she could that her leg now stopped halfway down her thigh and she was left with a stump. Her hands traveled down and she could feel the stitches and the vague pain, but she obviously had a lot of drugs in her system not to feel that much pain. at least she wasn't dead, she could complete this assignment with one leg.

"Now I know this is shocking but we need to run some tests to evaluate the lasting damage to your body." Doctor Roberts stated before signalling to the nurse to inform the specialists they were coming. As Ophelia was transferred to a wheelchair and wheeled down to another wing of the hospital where her recreated humanity and recent injury stirred a lot emotions within her soul and caused her mind to wander to her family before all this happened. Would she ever see them again? Feelings that she hadn't dwelled on for centuries came pouring back out coupled the freshness of these new injuries and the shock of her amputated leg. Tears rolled down her face and passers-by looked at her sympathetically assuming she had been told some terrible news.

The tests passed by quickly, Ophelia was on auto pilot she did everything the doctors told her but she wasn't actually processing the information.

"Miss Black... Miss Black?" Doctor Roberts questioned "are you listening?"

"I'm sorry doctor, it just been a lot of information." Ophelia said defeatedly. "What were you saying?" she questioned.

"I was telling you about your options for your leg. As I was saying could get you fitted for a prosthetic leg, as they man whose car crashed into you has offered to pay seeing as how he feels so terrible. If you don't want that you may be confined to a wheelchair or crutches." Dr Roberts said sympathetically.

"I guess I will get fitted for a prosthetic then." Ophelia sighed, a prosthetic, she hated the idea, they weren't that good in the early 40's without the demand that the end of World War Two created for them.

Ophelia was given a temporary prosthetic for her leg and she was pretty good at using it too, considering how awful rehab was in this decade, she was healing at a much faster rate than usual due to her magic speeding up her healing process. She was being hailed as a miracle by some of the doctors. Ophelia knew she needed to be more discreet but she hated hospitals and she wanted to be out of their as soon as possible. Almost a week after the incident they doctors told Ophelia that the boys whose lives she saved wanted to see her. Ophelia knew that this was her chance to get to know the boys and she jumped on it.

A couple hours passed and there was a knock on the hospital rooms door,

"Come in" Ophelia called, the door opened and three people made their way into the room, it was Nurse Adams and the two teenagers Ophelia needed to befriend.

"Wotcher!" Ophelia called mimicking Tonks, her mood significantly brightened with new company. Ophelia stood shakily on her prosthetic leg and a soft gasp was emitted from the small one. He probably felt incredibly guilty about her leg.

"Uh, Hi. My Names James Barnes but you can call me Bucky and this is Steve. We brought you some flowers as a thank you." The tall one, James, said somewhat nervously a mix of guilt and pity radiating off him, as much as Ophelia hated pity she didn't comment on it.

"Thanks," Ophelia said softly making her way over slowly on her leg to collect the flowers she was going pretty good before she stumbled and fell straight into James' chest. "Sorry" she apologized her words muffled sue to James' chest. Ophelia stepped back to steady herself cheeks flushed.

"It's all good Doll" James said as the Nurse left with a promise to come back with a vase for the flowers. The three continued to talk until visiting hours were over and they left with a promise to visit her tomorrow and with that a tentative friendship began, between two childhood friends and the girl who had risked her life to save them.


	2. Chapter 2: Her Boys

p dir="ltr" /p  
p dir="ltr"Ophelia stayed in the hospital for just over a week due to her fast healing, Steve and Bucky continued to visit whenever they could, each time thanking her profusely for saving them. Steve and Bucky were the only things keeping Ophelia sane, she hated hospitals but what she hated more was the pitying looks everyone gave her, and the pity of the overbearing nurses who looked at her as if she was incapable of just about everything. The boys could not be a better reprieve from hospital life, Bucky was loud and funny yet he was kind and sweet and Steve was quieter but not by much, and he was fiery and empathetic. Steve had taken longer to not feel uncomfortable in her presence, to feel anguish over her amputation, but once he did he felt as if he must protect Ophelia to the best of his ability, because just like him she was small and she was vulnerable in this world./p  
p dir="ltr"Ophelia was allowed to leave exactly 10 days after her accident, she was confined to a wheelchair for the time being just until her fitted prosthetic was finished. Even though she was out of hospital the boys didn't stop visiting her and trying to help her. Which lead her to another problem, she had no money, Death had secured her a small apartment near to where Bucky lived and set her up with a full backstory and fake family but he neglected to give her any way to support herself. Which lead her to the conclusion that she would need a job, this became the start of her problems./p  
p dir="ltr"Ophelia knew she would struggle in the 40's. Her stubborn personality and her belief in women's rights had made it hard to blend into the 40's life. She found comfort in her new friends but it didn't last long. Ophelia also had no experience in any common 40's work. Hell! She had never actually worked in her life. She became the master of death at 18 and had never been undercover anywhere long enough to warrant getting a job. It didn't help that many people wouldn't hire her due to her amputee status. She knew that she could still access the Potter fortune due to the Goblins system of blood identification, however she didn't want to risk messing up the time streams considering that was her job and she would eventually have to clean that mess up and surviving on conjured food was impossible. This is what made her eventually lower her standards, so she accepted a secretarial job for an office. The job payed her a barley liveable wage, but she made do./p  
p dir="ltr"Ophelia quickly learned to keep her mouth shut after almost losing her job after the first day. She, on multiple occasions, had to remind herself not to reply viciously to the blatantly sexist remarks made by employees. The only light in her life at the moment were the two boys she had made friends with. Their conversations flowed easily despite the boys censoring themselves unsure how to act around her. What she once thought would be a tiresome assignment became what Ophelia had craved for after having to leave Ron and Hermione./p  
p dir="ltr"Ophelia's life soon became a routine of dealing with the men in the office and hanging out with Steve and Bucky, and with the help of the longer dresses and stockings of the 40's she was able to conceal her prosthetic and, with the help of her magic, walk fluidly without hindrance from her leg. While her life seemed to be looking up her job however steadily got worse. She worked for Jones and James packing that was heavily involved in shipping materials out to the front line and as the war got worse so did the mood of the office./p  
p dir="ltr""File these for me sweetheart" a man said condescendingly, handing her a pile of stacked paper./p  
p dir="ltr""I will get to that soon. You can leave them in the pile. Have a good day sir" Ophelia exclaimed biting her tongue,/p  
p dir="ltr""Do you know who I am?! They need to be filed now!" the man bellowed./p  
p dir="ltr""I'm sorry, but I have some work that takes precedence over filing. If you will just wait a minute I will get to it soon." Ophelia said a fake smile covering her features, she was in fact trying to organise the shipments of food goods to the frontline camps as half the staff was incompetent, which left her with double the work to do, as men thought that just because she was a woman that she could be walked all over./p  
p dir="ltr""This is why women should never work. They're useless." The man said loudly as he stalked away. Ophelia felt like ripping his head from his body, but she needed this job and it was unlikely that there were many places that would hire her so she settled for a piercing glare through at the back of her head and grumbling./p  
p dir="ltr"One perk of this job however was that on her way home she always saw Bucky. He, along with Steve at the moment were the best thing that had happened to her in a long while. It was easy to forget that they were her assignment, they were everything that she didn't even know she had missed about her old life. She felt as if they filled the hole in her heart that leaving her family made. They could make her smile so easily, they could brighten her day every time she saw them. She hadn't properly talked to anyone except death in eons and she hadn't felt this alive since Hogwarts. She couldn't help but imagine her life here in the 1940's with these boys, that even though she had only known them for just over a month had made her so happy and so fulfilled./p  
p dir="ltr"Once her tedious and dull workday finished all Ophelia wanted to do was scream. But on her way home she saw Bucky, who never failed to make her feel better./p  
p dir="ltr""James, Hey." Ophelia called, Bucky turned./p  
p dir="ltr""Why do you insist on calling me James? Everyone else calls me Bucky." He sighed, walking back towards her./p  
p dir="ltr""To annoy you." Ophelia teased, smiling, when she was with him it seemed that all her worries just faded away. "What are you doing?"/p  
p dir="ltr""I was just coming back from Goldie's."/p  
p dir="ltr""Yeah? How is boxing going?" Ophelia questioned,/p  
p dir="ltr""Three-time YMCA welterweight boxing champion" Bucky said his chest puffed up proudly./p  
p dir="ltr""Impressive. I bet that gets you all the ladies." Bucky smiled proudly "though If you keep up with this they might just force you into the army." Ophelia smiled and joked "and what would Steve and I do without you."/p  
p dir="ltr""You will just have to come with me, legless and the ladies' man, fighting Nazi's" Bucky said a huge grin plastered on his face. Ophelia paused at the absurdity of his comment before bursting into hysterical laughter and throwing her head back and clutching her stomach, trying to breathe though her laughs. Bucky laughed along with her a pleasant smile gracing his face./p  
p dir="ltr""My God James what would your mother think of you, making fun of a ladies disability" Ophelia jokingly admonished, her eyes twinkling. Bucky rolled his eyes and slung his arm around her shoulders./p  
p dir="ltr""Where are you going?" Bucky asked/p  
p dir="ltr""Home. I just finished the worst day of work." Ophelia groaned, "Anyway how are you doing?"/p  
p dir="ltr"Bucky smiled softly "pretty good, I'm trying and failing to convince Steve to come to the dance hall with me tonight. Get him a lady." Bucky joked, "You should come too, we can help him find a dame."/p  
p dir="ltr""Afraid I won't be very good at dancing" Ophelia said, pointing at her prosthetic "I can barely walk without tripping." Bucky winced guiltily before covering it up with a smile./p  
p dir="ltr""I'll help you Doll." Bucky said grinning, Ophelia only had to think for a second at the sight of Bucky's encouraging smile./p  
p dir="ltr""Sure. Save me a dance." Ophelia said cheekily, as they headed to Steve's house./p  
p dir="ltr"Ophelia didn't have many nice clothes mostly only donations from kind neighbours, but she did have a dancing dress in a stunning shade of green that brought out her eyes. However the dress didn't hide her prosthetic well and her metal and wood leg glinted against the light./p  
p dir="ltr"Ophelia met Steve and Bucky the dance hall. Steve looked like a bundle of nerves, he looked tiny standing beside the tall and broad shouldered Bucky. Bucky looked as pretty as always, smiling at Ophelia's approach./p  
p dir="ltr""Lia you made it!" Bucky called, Steve poked his head up and smiled at her. Ophelia made her way over to the duo, and they walked inside./p  
p dir="ltr"The room was a hazy due to the smoke, yet the energy was enthralling, Ophelia couldn't help but smile, she stood around the edges with Steve and occasionally joining the dance when she was invited. Bucky had disappeared earlier into the dancefloor with a blonde woman and Steve tried to talked to others but as the night continued, Steve fumbled over his words around women and couldn't make out a proper sentence. He was extremely nervous. He hadn't had any luck in the women department in his whole life. He didn't know why he agreed to come dancing any way. Bucky had promised him that he would 'help him find a dame' but he was already gone flirting with some other girl across the hall./p  
p dir="ltr""Stevie" Ophelia called, "How's the search going?" she laughed./p  
p dir="ltr""Terrible." Steve sighed, "How does Bucky do it?" staring over at him./p  
p dir="ltr""I wouldn't know the only looks I've gotten today are ones of pity. Some bloke said he'd dance with me to, and I quote, emCheer up the crippled girl. /emIt was horribly embarrassing." Ophelia said with a blush on her face./p  
p dir="ltr""I guess I can't complain that much."/p  
p dir="ltr""You just need to find the right girl Stevie. You have a heart of gold and any girl would be lucky to have you." Ophelia smiled and slowly made Steve too./p  
p dir="ltr""Having fun without me?" Bucky questioned startling Ophelia and Steve who didn't see him coming. "Now, Lia. I promised you a dance." He said pulling her onto the dancefloor./p  
p dir="ltr"Bucky lead her into the swell of people calling over to Steve they would be back in a minute. Bucky took her arms and began to dance with her showing her the steps in time with the energetic and lively music, Ophelia couldn't do some of the dance but thanks to her magic she could do more than your average amputee. Ophelia couldn't help but feel giddy practicing the rehearsed steps and she was sorry when the song finished, Ophelia and Bucky both started laughing as they made their way back to Steve./p  
p dir="ltr""See Steve, isn't this fun." Ophelia Laughed, "come on I'm in the mood for dancing" she called while pulling Steve onto the dance floor, they made for quite a sight a clumsy amputee and a sickly awkward boy twirling about on the dance floor. Bucky stood just watching Ophelia for a while, he never thought she was as beautiful as she was now, her black hair twirling about and her bright green eyes like emeralds stood out against the sea of people in the room. Bucky was broken from his musings by Ophelia as she ran over clumsily to Bucky./p  
p dir="ltr""Come on Jamie, you are the one who dragged us here, let's dance!" Ophelia called light in her eyes, and for once Bucky couldn't help but smile and agree. /p 


End file.
